By Demons Be Driven

Serving the faith
Abduction the oath
It lies in wait for the offering
Religion is old
For drawing the young
Purity withers and dies
Never return to the ones that provided
Children draining parents of will
I hold out my hand to a bloodless child
I’m taken by the one I was saving from death

By demons be driven
Beckon the call

InÂ Iraq the news has been disheartening of late, weÂ see civil strifeÂ but in reality it goes beyond that, in Iraq they are by demonsÂ driven. Over time the people will recognize this evil, as Osama Bin Laden has gone from being the scion of Allah to being theÂ scourge ofÂ Allah.

215 killed in coordinated car bombingsÂ has the classic earmark ofÂ Al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgent attack on the ministry was a pure grab at power; the institution attacked used to be run by Sunnis – again this attack was probably inspired and encouraged by Al Qaeda.

AQ is pretty deft at harnessing the sectarian, class, and race divisions within the Islamic world to create their havoc, they learned well from the Soviets, and I have no doubt that Zawahiri and Bin Laden have both read “The Prince”, “On War”, “The Art of War” and all of the other classic military and revolutionary texts and handbooks.

When Al Qaeda kills the children ofÂ Allah, the devout, the Umma, then their struggle can no longer be jihad and instead becomes the old, cold and calculated struggle for pure power that the IslamicÂ world is so familiar with.Â

This struggle will be with us a long while as the Islamic world transitions from feudalÂ to post-feudal to modern. While we can sneer at the time it’s taking, going from the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights spanned 576 years, and there was plenty of strife in-between. The period from the end of the American Revolution until the Bill of Rights was passed covered 8 years; in Iraq we have unending second guessing when the same can’t be done in three years.

In Iraq the Sunni are the dispossessed — like the Loyalists of the American Revolution, many have lost their power, and some their possessions, postions, and place in society.

After the revolutionary war in America, greater than 30,000 Loyalists left the country for homes in Canada, the Bahamas, and other places under the crown. While there were some efforts by the new government to return property, those efforts were so delayed that they amounted to no compensation. In the end the British crown compensated the Loyalists, and made homes for them.

Had this not been done, and had third parties continually instigated, the US could easily have had as bad a period of strife post Revolutionary war as the Iraqi’s are experiencing now. In the end it boils down to land and wealth – as it almost always does. Everyone needs a place to call their home, their property, their wealth, their capital.

For the hard-core Sunni insurgents in Iraq, those not willing to adapt and join the new Iraqi democracy, similar efforts must be undertaken. It’s my sincere hope that Vice-President Cheney’s visit to Saudi Arabia hopes to accomplish some of this. If some hard-core Sunni elements do emigrate, then it takes the devil’s tools out of Al Qaeda’s hands.

Most accomplished military commanders throughout history have left a clear path of retreat for their enemies at battles, for in the end genocide is not the goal — victory and peaceÂ are the goals.

For the Iraqis who will remain, and for those neocons whose spines have de-calcified to jello: liberty is always ugly and bloody at birth, it takes perseverence, pain, and an adamant backbone. Do not loose your spine as some in the US have done, for that is a certain path to failure when you have already won freedom.